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September Building 


Pa 
2006 The Western 
Quaker 
Community 


Since 1929 


Bulletin 


The Official Publication of Pacific, 


North Pacific and Intermountain Yearly Meetings 


L. to R: Tom Kowal (Mt View FM, Denver CO), Cheryl Speir-Phillips (FNCL rep from Pima FM, Tucson, AZ), Ruah Swennerfeld and Louis Cox (Quaker 
Earthcare Witness), Joanne Cowan (Boulder FM, CO), Mike Gray (Pima FM), Danielle Short (AFSC, Denver, CO), Joe Volk (FCNL), Mary Rae Cate, Chris 
Viavant, Jose Romero, Bez Booth McCauley, Marybeth Webster (Douglas, AZ). 


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Friends Bulletin 

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Friends Bulletin 


The official publication of Pacific, 
North Pacific and Intermountain 
Yearly Meetings of the 
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) 
(Opinions expressed are those 
of the authors, 
not necessarily of the Yearly Meetings.) 


Anthony Manousos, Editor 
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DMMe)2VNbEm Yearly Meeting: A Journey of Discovery 


What is the Quaker faith? It is not a tidy package of words which you capture at any 
given time and then repeat weekly at a worship service. It 1s an experience of discovery, 
which starts the discoverer on a journey, which 1s lifelong. The discovery 1n ttself 1s not 
uniquely a property of Quakerism... What is unique to the Religious Society of Friends 
is its insistence that the discovery must be made by each of us individually. No one 1s 
allowed to get it secondhand by accepting a ready-made creed. Furthermore, the discovery 
points a path and demands a journey, and gives you the power to make the journey. 
—Elise Boulding, 1954 (Quoted in IMYM’s new Faith and Practice) 


Elise’s words apply not only to our Quaker faith, but also to attending Yearly 
Meeting. Yearly Meeting attenders embark on a journey, both literally and figu- 
ratively. We come together to learn as well as to teach, to share our discoveries 
and to be enriched by the discoveries of others. And this journey doesn’t happen 
only once; it happens again and again, over a lifetime, over many lifetimes, as we 
seek to grow closer to each other and to the Spirit who brings us together. 

This month’s cover features many of those who by sharing their faith journey, 
helped to enrich this year’s IMYM annual session; and some of their insights. 
appear in the pages of this issue: 


¢ Joanne N. Cowan writes about her experiences in prison after protesting at 


the School of the Americas (see p. 15). 


¢ Mike Gray is featured in the centerfold, where he is honored by the children 
for his work leading Quaker service learning projects. 


* Tom Kowal, along with others from the Committee on Migrant and Border 
Concerns, gives a message about immigration issues (see p. 6). 


¢ Joe Volk explains the work that Friends Committee on National Legislation 
is doing to promote peace and justice in our nation’s capital (see p. 3). 


Other Friends gave workshops on ecological concerns, border concerns, mys- 
ticism, spiritual formation, the death penalty, etc. I had the privilege of giving an 
interest group on interfaith peace making (see p. 8). 

The most historic development of this year’s annual session was the unveiling 
of the first draft of IMYM’s long-awaited Faith and Practice, finally ready after 13 
years. Composing this document has been a journey of discovery which is not 
over yet! Friends will be given another year to reflect upon this work-in-progress. 
The F & P committee sums up how, and why, this document came to be written: 


As is often the case when it comes to leadings, the answers to the persisting 
questions about why we needed to do this have emerged only through the 
process of faithfully fulfilling our charge. We have, as individuals, as a 
committee, and as monthly meetings, engaged both the material and one 
another at a deeper level. As we have struggled to choose words reflective of 
IMYM Friends, new ties to one another have developed, our commitment to 
each other has deepened, and our understanding of our unique identity as a 
yearly meeting has grown. The process has affected us all. 


So it is with this journey of discovery we call Quakerism. As we seek to follow 
the leadings of the Spirit, we find that we are given what we need; and one of the 
most important discoveries we make is how blessed we are to have caring and 


committed companions along the way. 


September 2006 


Maruncy 


FRIENDS BULLETIN 


The Force of Truth, the Power of Lov: 


by Joe Volk 


Friends Committee on National 
Legislation, Washington DC 


“With your help, we have been able 
to influence a superpower,” said Joe Volk 
of FCNL. “We want to thank you for 
helping us to zero out the funding for 
new nuclear weapons. Three years ago 
when we started this campaign, many 
organizations said, “You can’t stop this, 
it’s going to happen anyway.” Now these 
groups are helping us and have enabled 
us to stop the development of new 
nuclear weapons.” 

Joe went on to explain that those 
who want to develop new nukes have 
not given up, but have adopted new 
strategies. 

“We won on ‘no new nukes,” 
explained Joe. “But the administration 
is trying another approach: they want 
to build 150 to 250 new nuclear 
weapons per year and justify those new 
nukes as the way to get cutbacks in the 
current stock of nukes to 1,000. This is 
obviously unacceptable to us, and we 
will work to make sure this doesn't 
happen.” 

Joe also claimed another FNCL 
victory. “Both houses of Congress 
passed our bill calling for no permanent 


US military bases in Iraq,” he explained. 


INSIDE THIS ISSUE 


3 “The Force of Truth, 
the Power of Love” 
by Joe Volk 


? 


6 “Love the Strangers 
as Yourself” 
by the Committee on 
Migrant and Border 


Concerns 


8 “Interfaith Peacemaking 
and the Legacy of 
Tom Fox” 


by Anthony Manousos 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


“But it was deleted from the bill going 
to the President. Congressional 
advocates are so mad that they plan to 
place this no permanent bases Iraq 
provision on future legislation every 
chance they get.” 

Joe also expressed appreciation to 
those who had contributed to the 
FCNL building renovation project. 

“Over 2,000 people contributed a 
total of $6.2 million to building a green, 
fully accessible building, right across 
from the Hart Senate Office Building,” 
said Joe. “It was more than just a 
building, however. It was also a 
fulfillment of George Fox’s injunction 


9 “The Perils of Being Black 


or Brown in a Border Town” 
by Eisha Mason 

10 Epistles and minutesof Inter- 
mountain Yearly Meeting 

12 Intermountain Yearly 


Meeting in Pictures 


15 “Prisoner of Conscience 
Speaks Out” 
by Joanne Cowan 


16 “Epistle on Global Warming 
Presented at FGC Gathering 


a DeAnne Butterfield , Eric Wright, Joe Volk and Bob Pearson 


that we ‘be patterns, let our lives speak.’ 


This renovation embodies our Quaker 
witness and values. We get knocks on 
the door from Congressional staff, 
elected officials, architects... ‘Can we 
come in, can you show us your building? 
Can we have a meeting here and show 
people what a green building is like?” 
“Through the $6.2 million invested 
in this building we have created a new 
engine of change. People walk in the 
building and their ideas come alive. 
‘Could I do this in my house? Could 
we do this in a federal building?” 
During the rest of his talk Joe gave 
legislative updates and told four stories 
that illustrated the theme: “The power 
of love.” . 


and Karen Street’s 


Comments” 

18 “Bill and Genie Durland 
Honored” 

19 “The Vulture Church” 
by Peter Anderson 


19 IMYM accepts draft of 
Faith and Practice 


20 Memorial Minutes 


par Calendar Items and 
Classifieds 


He began by reminding us that in 
difficult times, since 9/11, it has become 
increasingly difficult to believe that the 
Lion and Lamb will lie down together. 
“It may happen,” he said, “but the Lamb 
wont get much sleep!” 

FCNL responded to the con- 
gressional debate on immigration issues 
this spring. The latest immigration bills 
came in two versions, one in the Senate 
and one in the House. They differ and 
must be reconciled. Conference Com- 
mittees will find reconciliation difficult 
and may not get that job done before 
the fall elections. 

Joe told about his studies in 
comparative religion and how many 
were influenced by the great theologian 
Reinhold Neibuhr. According to 
Neibuhr, you can achieve Christ’s ideal 
of love in heaven, but here on earth you 
must be realistic and settle for justice 
and sometimes use violence to achieve 
it. This theology contrasts Gandhi's 
approach, who believed that you 
sometimes must use voluntary self- 
suffering to reveal the truth to others. 
This nonviolent approach relies on the 
power of love and the force of truth. 

This is the basis for the Quaker 
position on war. We believe that pos- 
itive change comes about not through 
fighting, but through voluntary 
suffering. As William Penn said, the 
Quaker position on war is “not fighting 
but suffering.” 

To illustrate this, Joe told the story 
about how he became a CO during the 
Vietnam War. Joe came from a rural, 
religiously conservative area in Ohio, 
and he returned his deferment from the 
draft, because he opposed the Vietnam 
War. His draft board offered him a CO 
(conscientious objector) status, but he 
turned that down too, because he had 
not yet made the choice between the just 
war and the nonviolent approaches. He 
made the choice for nonviolence on the 
bayonet training field and quit training. 
Later he faced a general court martial 
at Fort Carson, CO for refusing to go 
with his combat unit to Vietnam. His 
Methodist pastor advised him to go to 


4 


the Quakers in Denver for advice. There 
he met Friendly AFSC counselors 
named Chester McQuiry and Holmes 
Browne. 

“I was welcomed by Quakers in 
Denver and treated warmly,” explained 
Joe. (Unlike Manhattan, where a 
clergyman and peace activist from 
another religious tradition poured a 
cocktail over my head, because I was in 
the Army.) “When I said I was going to 
refuse to go Vietnam with my outfit, 
Chester and Holmes told me that others 
had done that and I could too, if I had 


the courage of my convictions. They 


“Is Private Volk all right?” | 
Young Friends re-enact Joe Volk’s 
experiences in the Army 


explained matter of factly the real 
consequences: you will be sentenced to 
the stockade for six months at hard 
labor, a reduction in grade to E-1, and 
two thirds forfeiture of pay, and, then, 
you be released with an honorable or less 
than honorable discharge.” 

“Chester took me hiking in the 
mountains, and then I got on a bus to 
Colorado Springs and turned myself in 
to the MPs at Fort Carson to be arrested. 
Chester had asked: Would you like to 
have someone call the commander in 
the guard once a week to make sure 
you're all right? He said it might help 


to protect me while I was in 


September 2006 


confinement. He didn’t presume; he 
asked me. Yeah, sure, I said. After my 
conviction, I was in the stockade and 
was working in the back forty and the 
commander of the guard came to see 
me and asked, ‘Are you Private Volk?’ 
The guards and everyone else were 
amazed. I said, Yes. The commander of 
the guard said, How are you? I said, ‘T’m 
fine.’ Are you having any problems? ‘No 
sir, I replied. He then turned around 
and left. (Laughter.) I don’t know if the 
Quakers called him to ask if I was all 
right, but I do know that the 
commander of the guard came to ask 
me, and only me, if I was all right. I 
think it’s reasonable to assume that some 
nameless person, who didn’t know me, 
but who did love me, cared enough to — 
call and ask the question, ‘Is Private Volk 
all right?’ This two-minute phone call 
made a huge difference in my life. This 
little act of love.” 


Are Quakers extremists ? 


Joe told the story about a talk show 
that -hejdidsin (Septembens2001% 
“Waiting to go on air, the host’ 
conversation demonstrated that he was 
a voracious reader and very interested 
in everything. We had a nice time talk- 
ing about many things, including our 
families. Then the show opens and the 
host’s first statement was something 
like, “My guest today is Joe Volk from 
Friends Committee on Matters of 
Legislation. He represents a community 
that hates everything about America. 
They hate Star Wars and military 
defense. They hate the armed services 
and our soldiers. This is a chance for 
our listeners to find out why Joe and his 
community are so anti-American and 
extremist.” 

Joe was shocked by the talk show 
host’s tone, but after pausing for a 
moment, he finally replied, “Yes, we 
Quakers are extremists. In England in 
the 17th century we were considered 
extremists because we rejected the state 
church and refused to pay a church tax 
because we believed that every person 


FRIENDS BULLETIN 


could have a direct relationship with 
God. We also believed that no human 
being could be owned by another 
human being. So we opposed slavery 
and ran an underground railroad and did 
whatever else we could to help slaves. 
We also believed that men and women 
were equal. So we started coeducational 
schools and supported the Women’s 
Right to Vote movement . These are 
some of the extremist positions that 
we've taken and now they are part of 
our Constitution and our American way 
of life. That’s the kind of extremism that 
we Quakers supported, and that’s why 
we are the way we are today.” 

There is a force of truth, explained 
Joe. “We practice what we can't see 
happening yet. This is a gospel—the 
Good News—calling us to live in a now, 
but not yet, world. We are co-creators 
with God. We must always doubt, 
because doubt ministers to our faith. If 
we think we have the truth, then we 
have fallen off the path. We're always 
seeking.” 

Joe then spoke about a time not 
long after 9/11 when FCNL put up a 
banner up on FCNL’s building across 
the street from the Hart Senate Office 
Building. Those congressional staff and 
Members of Congress could see: WAR 
IS NOT THE ANSWER. 

Putting up this banner was a very 
tense moment because of the fear and 
anger on the Hill. Later some 
Congressional staff and colleagues from 
other religious offices would come up 
and say, “Thank you for putting up that 
sign.” 

Joe told the story of how the “War 
is not the answer” yard sign came about. 
An Atlanta, GA, monthly meeting had 
trouble coming to unity about putting 
up a banner. Some Friends objected 
since the meetinghouse was being used 
by groups that might not share this 
Quaker witness, and they could be put 
at risk. After a lot of discussion and 
“seasoning,” they decided to make 
individual lawn signs. “This idea got 
back to FCNL, and they produced 


thousand of signs. They became so 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


popular that over 150,000 signs and 
bumper stickers have been distributed.” 

Joe concluded by telling a story 
about how we seek “security.” 
Advertising campaigns were developed 
by two competing car companies. Volvo 
ran an ad that showed a Volvo hitting a 
wall and the dummies are not damaged. 
The ad said: “If you love your family, 
buy a Volvo”. Subaru ran a similar ad 
but when the Subaru was about to hit 
the wall, it slammed on the brakes and 
didn’t hit the wall. Subaru had a 
different slogan: “If you love your family, 
by a Volvo, or buy a Subaru, because we 
have a better idea—brakes!” 

Joe used this story to suggest that, 
for national security, we need to use the 


“Mourn the Dead, Heal the Wounded, End the War’: 
A National Memorial Procession from Arlington 
Cemetery to the White House, October 2, 2004. 
Sponsored by the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, 


www.peacepledge.org; photo © Matthew Bradley 


Subaru approach and use our brakes 
before we crash into a crisis situation. 
He also made clear that he was in no 
way suggesting that Subarus are better 
vehicles than Volvos. 


Q & A after Joe’s talk 


What is the FCNL policy on immigration? 
FCNL has a policy on immigration issues 
and has been responsive to community- 
based experience. In short, FCNL favors 
open, well regulated borders in a national 
and global context where all people are 
free to travel and work and where labor 
laws favor human rights. We see a nation 
that is composed of mostly of immigrants, 
and immigrants have built this county. 


Now is not time to turn immigrants away. 

Up to now, we haven't had money 
to have an influence. We calculate that 
it costs around $150,000 per year to 
actually influence the direction of US 
policy, to change the course of 
superpower policies. You need to have 
very smart senior lobbyists who can 
work the system, and they need support, 
too. Ruth Flowers has returned to 
FCNL after ten years at the American 
Association of University Professors 
(AAUP), and she will take a lead role 
to develop what FCNL can do on 
immigration issues. FCNL will want to 
draw on the experience and expertise of 
Friends in the Quaker community and 
, of course, with AFSC. 

Is FCNL involved in the interfaith 
peace and justice movement? We are very 
involved. We have just restructured the 
executive secretary's time so he can give 
more time to interfaith activities, as well 
as other initiatives. For example, FCNL 
participated in a Christian-Muslim 
exchange last year, that resulted in the 
Muslim-Christian statement on the 
nuclear danger which can be found on 
FCNLs website, www.fenl.org. 

How can we respond to the question, 
‘If war isnt the answer, what is? “Joe 
responded by calling attention to 
FCNLs blue booklet called “If War Is 
Not the Answer, What Is? Peaceful 
prevention of deadly conflict.” Four or 
five years ago, peaceful prevention of 
deadly conflict was not in the ken of 
government officials. Yet, last fall our 
senior lobbyist went to an off-the-record 
meeting where about 60 people from 
Congress and various government 
departments engaged these ideas. Why? 
Because many people in government 
have reached the conclusion that: War 
— o-called hard power”— isn't working. 
But war is bankrupting our government. 
We're seeing in Washington a growing 
momentum in thinking about the uses 
of so-called “soft power” for the peaceful 
prevention of deadly conflict. These 
discussion are “under the radar” now but 
may emerge as new policy initiatives in 
future Congresses. 0 


“Love the Strangers 
as Yourself...” 


Report by the Committee on Migrant 
and Border Concerns 
Intermountain Yearly Meeting , June 2006 


“The strangers who scjourn with you shall be to you as the 
natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; 
for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” 
(Leviticus 19:33-34) 


“What you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me.” 


(Matthew 25:40) 


e, as members of the Religious 

Society of Friends, and as 
residents of the Mexico-United States 
border region, recognize that im- 
migration to the US and to other 
countries is part of a natural pattern 
of economic and social exchange that 
existed before the creation of this 
border, which continues to benefit 
both countries today. We also 
recognize that much of the current 
high level of migration results from 
war and economic deprivation closely 
linked to the domestic, foreign and 
economic policies of our government 
and of US and multinational corp- 
orations. 

While we support the right of the 
government to enforce its just laws, we 
recognize that many US immigration 
laws are not just and are not defensible 
or enforceable in any practical, moral 
or ethical sense. We as Friends are 
called by our faith and practice to see 
the dignity and worth of every person, 
to oppose exploitation and oppression, 
and to witness and advocate for 
change to unjust laws and systems. We 
are called to work for a sustainable 
peace in our border region and 
throughout the world. 

While we recognize the need to 
protect the national security of the US 
and of each nation and community 
worldwide, we also recognize that 
“national security” is often used as an 


6 


excuse to engender fear of the “other” 
in our society and to maintain our own 
way of life even at the expense of the 
lives and the civil and human rights 
of others. We observe that this 
engenders nationalistic, xenophobic 
and racist expressions in our society. 
We see clearly that true national 
security for the US lies in the building 
of fair, just and sustainable social and 
economic systems. 

We now witness the implementa- 
tion of low-intensity warfare strate- 
gies along the US-Mexico border — 
we see the most powerful and richest 
nation on Earth waging war against 
the poor. We see the increasing mili- 
tarization of the border closing off safe 
migration routes and causing the hor- 
rific deaths of hundreds of human 
beings every year. We know that many 
thousands of men, women and chil- 
dren have died in this crossing, in the 
past ten years. We see that this bor- 
der militarization separates families 
and destroys social networks and com- 
munities on both sides of the border. 
We note that these unjust and inef- 
fective immigration policies and the 
militarization of the border have had 
the unintended effect of “stranding” 
many migrant workers on the US side 
of the border by disrupting their tra- 
ditional patterns of working in the US 
while maintaining their homes and 
families in Mexico and Central 


September 2006 


Immigrant Rights Rally in Denver, CO 


America. We see billions of dollars, 
desperately needed for infrastructure 
and economic development, and for 
health and education, wasted instead 
on a fruitless and misguided effort to 
stem historical and economically im- 
portant migration. 

We recognize that our current 
national policy creates an untenable 
and unjust situation wherein 12 
million people live and work in the US 
without legal rights or protections. We 
see that this disenfranchisement leads 
to systemic violation of human, civil 
and labor rights and protections. We 
observe that this leads directly to 
disruptions in wage scales and 
working conditions for all workers, 
and to disruptions in the essential 
labor supply for many industries and 
agricultural businesses in the US and 
elsewhere. We note the contradictions 
between the free flow of capital, 
materials, goods and services across 
international boundaries versus the 
constriction of the movement of 
working people. 

Wer recopnizemthattwen as 
privileged residents of the first world, 
benefit from the labor of those who 
suffer exploitation and deprivation on 
both sides of the border as a result of 
discrimination and unfair wages. We 
admit our ignorance and complicity in 
these unjust systems, and our failure 
to recognize how we benefit from the 


FRIENDS BULLETIN 


oppression of others in order to 
support our individual consumerism 
and corporate greed. We recognize our 
complicity in dehumanizing and 
demonizing the migrant in our midst. 

The Committee on Migrant and 
Border Concerns of Intermountain 
Yearly Meeting [IMYM] of the 
Religious Society of Friends, meeting 
in Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New 
Mexico in June 2006, therefore 


minutes the following: 


We dedicate ourselves to 
study and to prayer on local and 
global issues of migration and 
humane solutions to situations of 
economic injustice. 

We commit to support 
migrant and immigrant 
individuals and families. We com- 
mit ourselves to active witness, 
and to support those of our 
Meetings and other faith and 
justice communities who may 
suffer consequences for such 
witness. 


We oppose the militarization 
of the Mexico-US border, 
including the building of walls 
and the deployment of troops. We 
call for immediate and adequate 
provision to assure the safety of 
persons who migrate for economic 
reasons as well as for those who 
seek refuge. We call upon the US 
to honor its treaty obligations and 
to observe international law in 
these and in all respects. 

We support comprehensive 
immigration reform, including: 
provisions for reasonably 
regulated safe passage of migrants 
and refugees; legalization of 
persons now living and working in 
the US who now contribute to the 
well-being of our economy and 
communities; support for family 
reunification; consideration of 
future migration flows; and, 
respect for the rights and dignity 
of all, including the protections of 
labor and civil rights. 

This statement will be sent to 


Quaker organizations including 
FCNL and AFSC, to local and 
national media, and to our 
executive, legislative and con- 
gressional representatives, urging 
their attention to and pursuit of 
humane, fair, reasonable and 
comprehensive reform of US law. 
We will urge them to work with 
us to relieve these conditions 
above enumerated, and to 
participate with persons of good 
will world-wide in building a just, 
fair and sustainable system of 
trade and economic development. 


Submitted in love, witness and 
solidarity by these members of the 
IMYM Committee on Migrant and 


Border Concerns: 


—Danielle Short, Jonathan Cartland, 
David Perkins, David Henkel, David 
Baird, Tom Kowal, Karen Fleming, 
Mary Burton Riseley, Eric Wright, Jose 
L. Ramirez, Theresa Walker, and Judy 
Cottell. 


The Clarence and Lilly Pickett Endowment awarded six grants this year 
to support emerging Quaker leadership 


Joseph Shamala Mmbere 
- Kakamega Friends, Kenya. He is 
mentoring selected Kenyan youth 
to participate in an all African 
Youth Peace Conference in 
Rwanda, East Africa. 


Keevy Harris - Cedar Square 
Friends, NC. She assisted NC 
youth groups in developing posi- 

>4 tive relationships with MOWA 
Chociaw youth. 


Kathryn Lum - Lund 
|_| Friends, Sweden, She is assisting 
}{ Sikh women in Punjab, India, in 

their search for spiritual equality. 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


Danielle Brown - Deep 

Creek Friends, NC. She coordinat- 
ed summer youth activities among & 
MOWA Choctaw Friends in 
Alabama. 


Anna Staab - Purchase 
Friends, NY, She made a video 
documentary of the largest Powell 
House reunion in its four decade 
history held July 13-16, 2006, 


Jonathan Watts - QLsp, 
Guilford, NC, and Richmond 
Friends, VA. With a coalition of 
artists, he will make available dis- 
tinctly Quaker recorded music to 
bring Friends together. 


Interfaith Peacemaking and the Legacy of Tom Fox 


e Friends should be grateful to 

Chuck Fager and Florence Full- 
erton for honoring in print the memory 
of Tom Fox, who, by sacrificing his life 
in Iraq, has become one of the world’s 
best known and most widely respected 
Quakers. 

Thanks to the Wider Quaker Fell- 
owship, an outreach of Friends World 
Committee for Consultation, Florence 
Fullerton’s pamphlet is being circulated 
world-wide. It concludes with a passage 
from Tom’s blog that I found extremely 
moving and relevant. Describing a 
birthday celebration for the Prophet 
Mohammed in which he participated 
along with guests from the Iraqi criics 
of Najaf and Kerbala, Tom writes: 


For grace before the meal, a CP Ter 
(Christian Peacemaker Team) went 
into the office and opened the 
team’s Arabic Quran and put his 
finger down on this passage: 


One day shalt thou see the believing 
men and the believing women—how 
their Light runs forward before them. 
And by their right hands their greeting 
will be, ‘Good news for you this Day! 
Gardens beneath which flow rivers! To 
dwell therein forever. This indeed 1s 
the highest achievement. Sura 2, 12. 


... This opened up a discussion of the 


tradition in Islam, Christianity and | 


Judaism of throwing open the holy 
book of that faith tradition and 
reading the first passage that your 
eyes fall upon. Is this superstition? 
Does it have any relevance for our 
broken lives and chaotic world? 


Tom went on to observe that the 
people of Iraq are very angry, for 
understandable reasons; and the role of 
the CPT is to demonstrate how God’s 
grace and light can make a difference: 


We are throwing ourselves open to 


by Anthony Manousos 
Santa Monica (CA) Meeting 


the possibility of God’s grace 
bringing some rays of light to the 
shadowy landscape that is Iraq... 
Everyone whose government and 
corporations are playing a role in 
this land needs to throw open the 
book of their heart... That truly 
would be the highest achievement. 


Although Tom considered himself 
a Christian, he was open to spiritual 
insights from other religions, such as 
Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. He went 
to Israel/Palestine and listened to all 
sides in this tragic conflict. He lived 
side-by-side with the Iraqi people and 
took up their cause and their concerns. 
He showed by his example what it 
means to “walk cheerfully on the earth, 
answering that of God in everyone.” 

When news of Fox’s death was 
announced, he was deeply mourned by 


the Muslim community, which will 
always remember and honor him. A 
young Muslim man I know named Yasir 
Shah wrote a letter to Friends Bulletin 

when he learned of Tom Fox’s death: 

“Tm heart-broken to say that it’s only 
recently that I’ve come to find out about 

such a courageous and dedicated man... 

I believe that Tom Fox’s family, the 

American people, and the Iraqi people 

were blessed to have someone of his 

caliber to fight for them... I pray that 

we may increase our unity in the stand , 
against injustice, and continue to strive 

for the rights of all humans.” 

Not all of us have the calling or 
courage to follow Tom’s example. But 
we are called to honor his memory and 
to carry forward his spirit in our 
Quaker witness to the world. Let us 
therefore read and take Tom’s words 
to heart. 0 


Was My Friend 
Yours, Too. 


Sa 


From Kimo Press 
P.O. Box 1344 
Fayetteville NC 28302 


A Book of 
Remembrance & 
Reflection. 


24 Authors Ponder 
The Life and Witness 
of a Quaker Martyr. 
For Personal Devotion, 
or Group Study. 


Tom Fox 
Was My Friend. 
Yours, Too. 


Compiled & Edited 
by Chuck Fager. 


105 pp., Paperback 
$9.95 postpaid. 
Quantity Rates Available. 


September 2006 


FRIENDS KULLETIN 


The Perils of Being Black or Brown 
in a US Border Town 


by Eisha Mason 


Associate Director, Pacific Southwest Region, American Friends Service Committee 


am waiting to board a train in San 
Diego when I notice a Border Patrol 
agent making his way down our line. He 
stops by each person who looks “Latino” 
and asks them to present their legal 
documents. As the people standing next 
to me rummage for their identity pa- 
pers, I stand by, angry, embarrassed, and 
ashamed. In that moment, I don't know 
what to say or do to protest. 

My mind suddenly travels back in 
time. I “remember” what it must have 
been like during slavery for Black people 
who made it to the North. If they had 
no papers, they were doomed to live 
each day in fear. If they were “legalized” 
by free papers, they still always needed 
these documents, no matter who they 
were or how old they were or how long 
they had lived in their community. 
These papers were all that stood 
between them and being “deported” and 
returned to their slave status. My mind 
traveled across the ocean to South 
Africa, to a time not so long ago when 
the lives of African people in South 
Africa were controlled by the dreaded 


EIsHA MASON ts 
Associate Re- 
gional Director 
for the Pacific 
Southwest Region 
of AF'SC, was co- 
founder of Soul- 
force Trainings, 
and hosts The 
Morning Review 
every other ~ 
Thursday on 
KPFK between 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM. 
Reprinted from Peacework, June 2006 
(www.afsc.org/peacework), this article 
was originally published at 
www.blackcommentator.com. 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


Pass Laws that made it compulsory to 
carry papers at all times. The person 
without the pass was considered “illegal” 
and he or she could be put in detention 
or sent to the rural government-created 
“homelands” for Blacks called bant- 
ustans. Much like proposed guest 
worker programs for immigrants, the 
South African Pass Laws Act specified 
where and when African citizens could 
travel, and how long they could stay. 

My mind returns to the present. As 
the immigrant rights movement is 
building momentum nationwide, 
African Americans debate about where 
we should stand on immigration issues 
—shoulder to shoulder with im- 
migrants, in direct opposition, or on the 
sidelines. I believe that if we look just 
under the surface, we can see that our 
Black and Brown fates are deeply 
intertwined. 

As I learned from the Rights on the 
Line video about the phenomenon of 
the vigilante movement along the US- 
Mexico border, self-styled “Minutemen” 
are on “night patrol,” literally hunting 
the people trying to cross the border into 
the US. Dressed in their military garb, 
with flashlights, walkie-talkies and 
weapons, the militias freely wield the 
privilege and the power of race and their 
legal status. As I watched them 
rounding up frightened men and 
women, the hair on my arms rose. This 
time, too, | seemed to actually “re- 
member” the plight of runaway slaves, 
the fear and desperation they felt as they 
were tracked and trapped by white 
militias and returned to a life where their 
labor was exploited and their lives were 
not in their control. 

As the Black-Brown debate 


continues, I see that we have both been 


sources of cheap labor. First, Africans 
were the slaves required to perpetuate 
the globalized economics of the 1700s 
known as the Triangle Trade (slaves, 
sugar, and rum). Today, Latinos are the 
cheap labor required for magquiladoras 
south of the border, international 
agribusiness, and jobs at the lowest 
rungs of the US economy. Proposals for 
guest worker programs only perpetuate 
this model of workers without rights or 
protection. Black and Brown people 
have far more in common than we often 
realize. 

Both Black and Brown are targets 
of the racism used to justify unjust 
political, economic, and social policy. 
Past and present, members of these 
exploited and marginalized com- 
munities are portrayed as different from 
and less than other Americans. The 
poison of racism continues to allow 
those who are privileged to feel morally 
justified as they exploit and dehumanize 
people who provide “cheap labor” and 
simultaneously blame them for their lot 
in life. 

Both Black and Brown share 
common dreams of work with dignity, 
a better life for our families and our 
children. Isn’t that why slaves escaped 
to the North, and why freed slaves 
initiated the Northern Migration? Isn’t 
that why people from other countries 
risk their lives to reach the US today? 
We all desire the opportunity to build a 
life and to be respected and accepted 
members of the communities and 
country where we live. 

Black and Brown are not each 
other’s adversaries; we are natural allies. 
The economic and political forces that 
doomed millions of Africans to serv- 
itude and later to second-class 


9 


citizenship are the same forces 
responsible for unsustainable economic 
conditions in many foreign countries 
and the current migration of people to 
the US. They are the same forces 
responsible for conflict over jobs, wages, 
and economic opportunity in the US, a 
conflict that “results” in racism, 
discrimination, and _ repressive 
legislation. 

Because issues of labor, im- 
migration, and race are deeply en- 
meshed, we should be working to- 
gether toward solutions that include all 
of us. We must protect the rights and 


dignity of individuals who have come 
to the US to work: raise labor standards 
and wages on both sides of the border 
through reform of international trade 
policy; protect local economies every- 
where, rather than allow them to be 
overwhelmed by trade agreements 
favoring international corporations; and 
guarantee that every US worker has the 
right and the protection to form a labor 
union. We must organize! 

The border patrol officer is gone. 
Boarding the train in San Diego, I 
remember the words of Dr. Martin 


Luther King, Jr.: “We are caught in 


an escapable network of mutuality, 
tied in a single garment of destiny.” 
Black faces...brown faces... human 
faces.... My heart feels what my mind 
already knows. The people from across 
the border are not the problem. A 
system of economic exploitation and 
racism is the problem. Rather than 
believing our interests are in conflict, 
Black and Brown must stand 1n unity 
and work together to transform this 
system. There is ultimately one 
movement—the movement for 
human dignity and opportunity —and 
rani part on it es 


Intermountain Yearly Meeting 
Epistles and Minutes 


INTERMOUNTAIN YEARLY MEETING 
EPISTLE 2006 


‘I saw, also, that there was an ocean of 
darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of 
light and love, which flowed over the ocean 
of darkness.” —George Fox 


Dear Friends Everywhere, 

As the Friends of Intermountain 
Yearly Meeting gathered June 14 through 
18, 2006, the ocean of darkness was at 
high tide. Our country continued to be 
mired in the war in Iraq, our military was 
accused of torture; genocide raged in 
Darfur; and we mourned the loss of 
Quaker peace activist Tom Fox. 
Thousands of people have died in the 
desert while crossing our militarized 
southern border. One truth had become 
clear: we have inflicted possibly 
irreversible damage on our earth. 

But the ocean of love was rising to 
meet the ocean of darkness. For Quakers 
in the Southwestern US, this is a time of 
building and growth, spiritual renewal 
and acting on our convictions. 

It is a time, as our 2006 yearly 
meeting theme instructed us, to feel “The 
Force of Truth and the Power of Love.” 

As the 320 Quakers who met here 
attended interest groups issues such war, 
torture, border concerns and 


10 


environmental crisis, we were 
heartened by the almost startlingly 
positive message of our keynote 
speaker, Joe Volk of the Friends 
Committee on National 
Legislation (FCNL). 

Friend Volk reminded us that 
truth and love have a power of their 
own that, over time, always prevails. He 
named our recent victories in Congress: 
progress on immigration reform; nuclear 
weapons reduction; and legislation 
barring permanent bases in Iraq. 

FCNUs Civil War-era office building 
in Washington, DC, lovingly restored 
with donations from Quakers across the 
country, stands as testimony to American 
Quakers’ awakening commitment to the 
environment. It was built with the 
“greenest possible” technology and is 
attracting much interest on Capitol Hill. 

A growing number of yearly 
meetings are affiliating with Quaker 
Earthcare Witness. Ruah Swannerfelt 
and Louis Cox of that organization came 
to IMYM to help us understand the 
spiritual foundations of our caring for the 
earth and to encourage our participation 
in QEW. 

Here at our own beloved meeting 
place, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, the 
physical landscape is changing. Two new 
housing units, a retreat center and a 


September 2006 


‘L. tor: Judy Ray (recording clerk), Rebecca Henderson ‘ 


and Cynthia Smith (co-clerks) 


worship center are going up concurrent 
with our worship sharing. 

We have seen growth in our 
monetary resources as well, and both the 
meeting and our IMYM-American 
Friends Service Committee Joint Service 
Project are on solid financial footing. The 
JSP (Joint Service Project) logged its 
most service projects ever, including a 
several-week stint rebuilding homes 
ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. 

With growth, of course, come 
growing pains, and some meetings 
struggled to accommodate the influx of 
new attenders and new ideas. “Without 
conflict, there can be no diversity,” 
reported Pima (AZ) Monthly Meeting, 
and that held true with our yearly meeting 
as well. We addressed a conflict regarding 
our support of the Joint Service Project, 
which brought us growth and greater 
understanding. Out of this discussion 
came expressions of concern and 
suggestions for improvement as well as 
heartfelt support for the JSP. How do we 


act on our spiritual convictions about 


FRIENDS BULLETIN 


service while providing a respectful and 
loving environment for both volunteers 
and the community being served? 

Unity came easily on a minute urging 
our government to ban all further research 
and development of nuclear weapons. 
Also approved was a minute committing 
IMYM'’s spiritual and financial support 
to an FCNL staff position covering 
immigration and border concerns. There 
is much energy regarding continued 
discussion of the yearly meeting’s 
involvement in this complex and urgent 
issue. 

Two long-term projects came to 
fruition. IMYM has its very own Faith 
and Practice, thanks to the efforts of a 
dedicated committee, some of whom have 
been involved in this task since 1993. It 
will be seasoned among the monthly 
meetings in the year to come. And the 
trusty Guide to Operations has been 
updated and posted on our website, 
imym.org, for easy access. Look for more 
and more useful material on our evolving 
website. 

Friends approved the formation of a 
committee and financial support toward 
the adoption of the Spiritual Formation 
Program in our yearly meeting. 

Individually, many Friends have 
experienced growth and building in their 
own lives. One Friend, Joanne Cowan of 
Boulder (CO) Monthly Meeting, recently 
completed a 60-day sentence in federal 
prison for going under the fence 
(trespassing) at the School of the 
Americas to protest our government’s 
teaching of torture. 

As always, yearly meeting provided 
a respite from the demands of daily life 
and the opportunity to re-evaluate our 
commitments, perhaps shedding those 
which crowd out joy. We celebrated our 
joyous fellowship with singing, dancing, 
hiking and music-making. 

A turn volunteering with the children 
or Junior Young Friends gave several 
adults a reminder of just how joyful life 
can be. Our Senior Young Friends 
impressed and inspired us with their 
presentations on the World Gatherings 
of Young Friends in England and Kenya. 
Our Young Adult Friends are establishing 


an identity within our yearly meeting and 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


issuing an invitation for others to join 
them. 

Ghost Ranch showed us all its faces 
this year, from sunny to stormy to a 
peaceful, refreshing cloud cover. For the 
first time anybody could remember, the 
famous no-see-ums were nowhere to be 
seen. 

Here in the high desert, Ghost Ranch 
Manager Robert Craig reminded us, 
“We're a little bit vulnerable (and 
therefore more available) for God to work 
on us.” Indeed, it is when we are at our 
most powerless that we are most open to 
the force of truth and the power of love. 
In peace, Rebecca Henderson and Cynthia 


Risa Thron-Weber 


SENIOR YOUNG FRIENDS EPISTLE 


[At the business session, Senior Young 
Friends requested from Friends gathered 
there a spontaneous and random offering of 
verbs, adverbs, nouns, and adjectives. From 
these, the underlined words 1n the following 
letter were selected, and the letter was read 
after these responses were inserted. | 


Drawn to another year of IMYM by 
the force of apples and the power of 
friends, the SYF joined again in the 
beautiful Ghost Ranch, New Mexico 
(US). It was a sandy year starting in the 
early dogs and continuing at full power 
through the week. The gathered days 
walked full of lots of game singing and 
the occasional trusting conversation. We 
were truthful to find that we had 50 SYF 
for the early days and were able to want 
even closer than some chimney rocks. 
When the yearly love started hungrily, we 
commenced our universal behavior, caring 
intergenerational worship, twirling, and 


sleeping very prickly. One night we 
paired up and looked into each other’s 
compassions for a number of centuries. 
This was a slowly intense experience for 
all fun and observers. On Friday night 
we went on a camp out but there was no 
gopher so we had no lunch. Since we had 
to turn in our epistle so early Saturday 
morning we didn’t have time to play 
anything else. 


JUNIOR YOUNG FRIENDS EPISTLE 


Dear Friends of the World, We are the 
Junior Young Friends of Intermountain 
Yearly Meeting, and we send you our 
greetings from our (June) 2006 gathering 
at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico (US). 
We write to tell you of the trans- 
formational experiences we have had this 
year at Ghost Ranch. We are thankful 
that activities which outwardly might 
seem to be just fun can touch our inner 
lives: 


e We built community through low 
ropes and high ropes courses. 


e We went canoeing and kayaking 
on Abiquiu Lake, and were happy to be 
joined on the water by a developmentally 
disabled child who was our age and would 
otherwise have been in our group. 


e We participated in fun games with 
both the Senior Young Friends and the 
Children’s Yearly Meeting. 


e We enjoyed building our 
relationships through playing fussball and 
table tennis while hanging out at the 
cantina. 


e We had almost twice as many 
attendees in our program this year as last 
year, and we note that half of us arrived 
for the “Early Days” of the Yearly 
Meeting. 


e During the Early Days, we enjoyed 
the freedom our trusting parents gave us, 
and we did not let them down. We 
enjoyed many hikes, experiencing that of 
God in high and low places. 


e Some of us participated in the Early 
Days IMYM-AFSC Joint Service Project 
with the Tewa people in the Pojoaque 


“Epistles” continued on page 14 


11 


intermountain Yearly 
Meeting in Pictures 


Top: Gay and Lesbian Friends: Mary Hey, Judy Catlett, Bez 
McCauley, Dennis Barrett, Peli Lee, and ?. 


Middle left: Caz Bowman from Australia Yearly Meeting. 


Middle right: “Oldest and youngest attender,” Robert 
Solenberger (Pima Meeting, Tucson, AZ; age ca. 90) and Sarah 
Feitler (Boulder, CO) with her daughter Rose, born in February 
2006. Photo by Valerie Ireland. 


Bottom of page: Friends Committee on Legislation letter- 
writing table with Sarah Medvescek in the center. 


WITH INDIA 


12 September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


Assisted by Nadean Mills (Durango, CO, Meeting) elementary 
age Friends (Maggie and Amedia Wigdon and Madison 
Norcross, picture below) created a puppet theater honoring 
Quakers whose lives testify to Quaker values. Among those 


honored was Mike Gray (above), coordinator of the AFSC/ 
IMYM Joint Service Project for the past 15 years. 


Vining Ghat 


: ANP essen tint, 
SOHNE Teetonse 


Siehilicnn i 


abe 
Aw NS fhe Gecasing foe BAF: 


eohkin; Justice andl wally jy 
c duseiinetlor 


Left: Mark Holdoway, Junior Young 
Friend advisor. 


Right: Milagre Coates, Junior Young 
Friend co-clerk 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


Pueblo, and we rebuilt the gateway to the 
ceremonial grounds where they hold their 
annual gathering for Mother Earth. 


e We enjoyed Alternatives to 
Violence Project activities each day. 
These helped us to work together as a 
community. 


e Each year we have a Junior Young 
Friends campout, and this year we feel 
we have found our camping home at 
Padre Jim Bridge, a beautiful spot for 
camping about two miles from Ghost 
Ranch. We thank Mike Gray for taking 
us there and back and being with us 
overnight. 


e We were unhappy that we were not 
able to light a fire during our campout. 
This is because of an extended drought 
in the Southwest (US). We are all 
concerned about climate change, but we 
enjoyed the fact that no bugs bothered us 
this year. 


e While sitting around the empty fire 
ring at the campout writing our epistle, 
we were visited by three donkeys in the 
dark. They ate our shortbread, which 
made for much excitement and gave some 


of us a laugh. 


e We look forward to meeting with 
Joe Volk (Executive Director of FCNL) 
and will provide an addition to the epistle 
after we do. 


During this year at Ghost Ranch, we 
were able to have fun and work through 
our problems using Quaker methods. 
While we were working on the JYF skit, 
the group got into a disagreement. We 
fought, and some of us got emotional to 
the point they had to leave. The 
remaining individuals went into worship. 
After adult leadership left to care for the 
others who had gone, we discussed what 
happened and we understood each other. 
The upset people came back, and we 
acknowledged our part in the dispute and 
accepted responsibility for our actions. 
After all we went through, we ended with 
a Quakerly spirit and a deeper friendship 
in our hearts. 

We look forward to next year and 
hope it is as enlightening as this year, 
and we anticipate growing in the year 
to come. O 


14 


CHILDREN’S YEARLY MEETING 
EPISTLE 


Dear around-the-world Friends, 
Hello from Children’s Yearly Meeting at 
Intermountain Yearly Meeting. We are 
at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico 
an oasis in a high, hot and windy desert. 
Thank God for the swimming pool. We 
have tons of fun here. Some of the things 
we've done are: kickball, volleyball, 
swimming, and “groundies” (a game like 
tag). We went to the Ghost Ranch 
museum where we learned about 
dinosaurs and early settlers, and did tin 
work. We learned that celophysis, a 
dinosaur discovered here, was the first 
dinosaur found in New Mexico. We have 
learned a lot and enjoyed being together. 
We'll write again next year. Till then, 
IMYM rocks! 

—Miulagre Coates, Megan Richardson, 
Keegan Matney 


Minutes Approved 
by Intermountain 
Yearly Meeting 


MINUTE ON BORDER CONCERNS 
AND FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON 
NATIONAL LEGISLATION FROM 
GILa (NM) FRIENDS MEETING 


In an era of globalization, when 
goods and capital flow freely across 
national boundaries, often the movement 
of human beings is tragically exploitative. 
Immigrants across the globe risk their 
lives and family ties for low-paying jobs 
in foreign countries. 

Nowhere are the unresolved 
issues of immigration more costly than 
on the border between the United States 
and Mexico. Since 1995, more than 2600 
people have died while trying to cross the 
deserts of America’s southwestern states. 
The annual death toll is rising. 

The causes of increasing immigration 
are complex, but for Friends the call to 
witness for humanitarian justice is clear. 
At a time when there is pending 
legislation in Congress on immigration 
reform, the Friends Committee on 
National Legislation is prepared to staff 


September 2006 


a position solely devoted to border and 
immigration issues. 

FCNL seeks expressions of 
commitment from Yearly Meetings in our 
region to sustain this work. Recognizing 
the longstanding involvement of Friends 
in movements such as the Underground 
Railroad and the Sanctuary Movement, 
Intermountain Yearly Meeting commits 
its spiritual and financial support to the 
FCNL in its new work on economic 
justice and immigration. 


CALL FOR NUCLEAR 
DISARMAMENT 
FROM ALBUQUERQUE (NM) 
MONTHLY MEETING 


We call upon our elected leaders to: 

* Stop the design and manufacture 
of all nuclear weapons, including 
plutonium bomb cores (“pits”) at Los 
Alamos and elsewhere. 

¢ Dismantle our arsenal in concert 
with other nuclear powers, pursuant to 
Article VI of the Nuclear Non- 
Proliferation Treaty. As the most powerful 
nation on earth, the U.S. must take the 
first steps in this process. 

* Halt disposal of nuclear waste at 
Los Alamos, as thousands of citizens and 
dozens of environmental organizations 
have already requested. 


MINUTE FOR A PILOT 
SPIRITUAL FORMATION PROGRAM 


The Yearly Meeting asks the 
Spiritual Formation Group to serve as an 
ad hoc yearly meeting committee to 
develop and implement a pilot spiritual 
formation program over the coming two 
years. This program will seek to feed the 
spiritual hunger of individuals, meetings 
and worship groups, increase knowledge 
of and identification with Quaker 
experience in the wider world, and 
support inter-visitation among our 
various meeting and worship groups. 

The Group will report to the 
Executive Committee and annual 
sessions. The membership will develop 
according to interest and need. The 
Group will choose its own clerk. 


Continued on page 22 
FRIENDS BULLETIN 


Prisoner of conscience 
speaks out on war, torture, and 


“unexpected grace” 


by Joanne N. Cowan 
Boulder (CO) Meeting 


| attended IMYM this year less than 
a week after my release from Federal 
Prison for a nonviolent act of civil 
disobedience, protesting the existence of 
the notorious School of the Americas 
(SOA) and I was asked to write about 
my experience. 

I'm beginning with what is most 
important: not what J did, but about 
what you can do to oppose the SOA. 
First, if you can, go to www.soaw.org to 
learn (more) about the School of the 
Americas (renamed in 2001 Western 
Hemisphere Institute for Security 
Cooperation (WHINSEC), about 
School of the Americas Watch 
(SOAW), and the brave work of former 
Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois and 
hundreds of others. 

This year there will be another 
demonstration and memorial vigil 
outside the gates of Fort Benning 
(Columbus, GA, home of the SOA) on 
the weekend of November 17-19 and 
likely there will be more priests, nuns, 
Quakers, and other human rights 
defenders called to oppose the shameful 
existence of the SOA. 

Last November 20, along with 36 
others, I crawled under a fence to sit in 
a prayer circle on the grounds of Fort 
Benning, as nonviolent witness against 
the teaching and exporting of torture 
techniques from a facility existing for 
decades, paid for by our taxes, and from 
which graduates go forth and commit 
horrific acts of violence. We were 
arrested for misdemeanor criminal 
trespass, tried and convicted in January, 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


Joanne N. Cowan 


2006, and sentenced collectively to over 
nine years in Federal Prison. I received 
a sixty day sentence and was released 
June 7. 

I feel honored to have joined the 
nonviolent witness against the SOA that 
in the last sixteen years has brought 215 
individuals into prison, incredibly 
serving collectively over ninety-nine 
years, either in prison or on probation. 
I didn’t act impulsively or abruptly. The 
call for me began with hearing IMYM’s 
plenary talk in 2005 given by Jane Orion 
Smith, entitled “Shaking the Found- 
ations: A Call to Prophesy.” I was sup- 
ported in my leading first by a Clearness 
Committee that faithfully tested this 
call (which later morphed into a 
Continuing Concern Committee), held 
tenderly throughout by the Boulder 
Meeting of Friends, It was also 
supported by the competent and 
diligent attention of the people at 
School of the Americas Watch, founded 
16 years ago by Father Roy, with the 
goal of closing the SOA whose purpose 


is never to forget the murders and 


atrocities committed by graduates of the 
School against Archbishop Oscar 
Romero, Jesuit priests, Maryknoll nuns 
and countless innocent civilians. 

lvexperienced’ an unexpected 
opportunity of grace during my 
imprisonment,:where I could learn from 
and listen to the compelling and sad 
stories of many women, incarcerated for 
crimes that frequently arose from lives 
burdened by sexual abuse, racism, 
classism, who lack the opport-unities 
privilege avails. I now retain the chance 
of knowing these women better as we 
correspond. 

Incarceration immersed me in a 
world of paternalistic denial of privilege, 
pervasive control, and mandated slave- 
wage labor. However, at the same time 
I participated in and learned about a 
flourishing “inside” culture of creativity 
and individualization. The frank open- 
ness from the women I met (from many 
walks of life and colors) to receive the love 
and compassion | brought with me into 
the prison enabled me to reach new 
personal understandings of generosity and 
mindful caring. In certain ways, it was a 
blessing I completed, not solely a sentence. 

My activism against the SOA 
sprang from opposition to this illegal, 
immoral war we continue to allow. We 
must all, always, engage the struggle for 
peace in whatever ways we find. My 
life circumstances allowed me to under- 
take this prison journey, which would 
have been impossible without the 
support of many F(f)riends. I learned 
something I hope to never forget: 
when we live from our hearts, the 
Divine is always with us. We can never 
know what awaits us in anything we 
choose to do. O 


US) 


Epistle on 
Global 
Warming 


_—” presented at the 
Zopay we Friends General 
Conference 


Gathering in Tacoma, WA* 


THE EARIM IS GROWING HOLTERE ee 
result of choices we have made. The signs are all 
around us in rising yearly average temperatures, 
melting glaciers, expanding deserts, increasing rates 
of extinctions, and weather extremes. There is unity 
within the scientific community that this is serious, 
that it is caused by human activity, and that the 
consequences of a failure to address global warming 
will be catastrophic. 

We have a small window of opportunity. Over 
the course of the next nine years, if humanity fails 
to significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions, the 
result is likely to be a sea level rise of 10 to 13 feet 
per century until the level stabilizes at 80 feet above 
today’s level. Loss of productivity in ecosystems and 
crops worldwide will also occur, resulting in mass 
starvation. 

We appeal to all Friends to make this concern 
a priority in our families, communities, and 
meetings, and to commit ourselves to learn more 
about this urgent planetary crisis, so that each of us 
may discern further actions that will be required of 
us. 

Some actions that we can recommend at this 
time include: 

* Reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions by 
10% in the coming year by cutting driving, flying, 
and residential energy use. Walk and bicycle more, 
use mass transit and fluorescent light bulbs. 

¢ When we have cut our own use of fossil fuel, 
labor with others to help them do the same. 

* Labor with our legislators and if that doesn’t 
work, replace them. 

We urge Friends as individuals and as meetings 
to engage the conversation and to stay with it. 
Meetings should institute quarterly threshing 
sessions to discern how we are led corporately to 
act. 


“This epistle is from the participants in Karen Streets 
workshop, “Changing Climate, Changing Selves” which 
took place at the Western Gathering of Friends General 
Conference. It 1s not an official statement of FGC. 


16 


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RACE HAS NOTH 


Some of the changes that concern us deeply we can not escape. 
But others we can escape if we act responsibly now and into the future. 
The consequences of not acting are unthinkable for us, our children, 
and our grandchildren. 

Friends, we urge you to attend to our call. For the love of 
everything you hold most dear, please take up this concern now and 
carry it back to your meeting. 

Many references are available on this topic such as 
www.climatecrisis.org, www.pathsoflight.us/musing, and the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found at www.unep.ch/ 
ipcc/. This document can be found on www.LeavesofGrass.org. 


Karen Street's comments on the Epistle 


KAREN STREET, @ concerned environmentalist from Berkeley (CA) 
Meeting led the workshop which inspired the above epistle. She posted the 
following comments in her blog (http://pathsoflight.us/musing/index. php). 
Tf you would like to respond to the epistle or to Karen’s comments, please 
reply to Friends Bulletin at friendsbulletin@aol.com or directly to her blog. 


The nine-year window of opportunity mentioned comes from 
the analysis of climatologists and policy people. In order to keep 
cumulative temperature increase below 2 C, we must do the following: 

Step 1: Reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2015 to 
2005 levels, or perhaps 10% lower than 2005 levels, even as population 
and per capita consumption continue to increase. Without success in 
step 1, there is no step 2 that will work. 

Step 2: Reduce GHG emissions 60% or 60%+ or 60%++ by 2050 
or earlier. Even as population and per capita consumption continue 
to increase. 

Step 3: Zero out carbon dioxide emissions to protect the oceans, 
which are acidifying as they absorb carbon dioxide from the 
atmosphere. 

The writers of the epistle wanted to keep it short, and so em- 
phasized only the first timeline; many Friends and many in the public 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


Me THE 
AROUND ” 


FAC 
THE .POUCY! 


HE 


Cartoons © Trudy Myrrh, Palo Alto (CA) Meeting 


“If mere thousands of Easter Islanders with only stone tools and their 
own muscle power sufficed to destroy their society, how can billions of 
people with metal tools and machine power fail to do worse? But there 
is one crucial difference. The Easter Islanders had no books and no 
histories of other doomed societies. Unlike the Easter Islanders, we 
have histories of the past—information that can save us. My main 
hope for my sons’ generation 1s that we may now choose to learn from 
the fates of societies like Easters.”—Jared Diamond, “Easter Island’ 
End,” Discovery Magazine, August 1995. 


believe that we have less to do and longer to do it in. 

Someone responded to my blog noting that people deserve 
acknowledgment for changes already made. (Brief pause to consider 
these changes, whether they were easy or hard, but to take credit for 
either.) 

However, I have cut my own emissions and see clear means of 
cutting my emissions by 10% or more. Perhaps others do as well. I 
would think that most Americans, including those who emit less 
than the American average, could reduce our GHG emissions 10% 
without substantial harm or inconvenience. 

I would be surprised to learn that changing policy is considered 
a third option. As I understand it, all need to be done simultaneously 
and immediately. 

Al Gore tells us in his film, 4n Inconvenient Truth to labor with 
our legislators, and if that doesn’t work, replace them. To get some 
idea where your Senator is on climate change, see http:// 
www.climatenetwork.org/uscanweb/csadocs/mlvote.pdf on the 
McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act. If your Senator voted 
against it, they may have justifications. They have no excuse. 

What is it that we want our national legislators to do? 

* Carbon cap and trade. 

* Double fuel economy for cars and light trucks and raise fuel 
prices so that we don’t increase driving as driving costs drop. 

- Tax our own energy use to pay the developing world’s cost of 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


reducing GHG emissions. 

Carbon cap and trade, or GHG cap and trade, 
is the setting of caps on the amount of carbon 
dioxide/GHG that can be emitted in a country or 
economic sector such as electric power production, 
and then allowing the trading of permits so that 
industry finds the cheapest ways to reduce carbon/ 
GHG emissions. 

US per capita GDP is 30 times that in China, 
and our share of the cumulative emissions to date is 
much greater than China’s, even though their 
population is greater. Who should pay? 

Some Republicans are uncertain of the science, 
which if you avoid reading the science, is pretty easy. 
Some Democrats are more interested in making sure 
that solutions don’t include nuclear power, but there 
is no solution without nuclear power. Whatever their 
justifications, they have no excuses — we must reduce 
GHG emissions to 2005 levels, or lower, by 2015, 
even as population and third world emissions 
increase. And then cut much more rapidly and 
radically by 2050. And then zero out carbon 
emissions. 

Some legislators argue that we cannot afford 
these policies. John Holdren says that these extra 
economic burdens mean that we will not reach 2050 
levels of prosperity until 2051 or 2052. What he does 
not say, but implies, is that without taking on these 
economic burdens to reduce the impact of climate 
change, we may never reach 2050 levels of prosperity. 

What else can national legislators do? Require 
that state policy—building codes,where people are 
allowed to live, water policy, ete—include adaptation 
to climate change. Adaptation will be required in 
the lifetime of buildings built today. Does it really 
make sense to resettle the coasts in Florida and 
Louisiana? 

In some countries, fuel taxes are a significant 
source of revenue. Our legislators should at least 
request studies on the economic effects of phasing 
in high fuel taxes (on airplane fuel as well). Besides 
reducing other new taxes planned for January 2009, 
high fuel taxes lower the price per barrel paid to oil 
producers (European countries pay less for their oil 
than we do). High fuel prices provide stability, so 
that price increases due to political insecurity don’t 
have the same shock value, because prices start out 
high. High fuel taxes will be part of any carbon cap 
and trade program, but they can also be part of a 
more rational economic policy. 

I hope to post on laboring with California 
legislators soon. Rule of thumb: support all of the 
new legislation being proposed to implement 
recommendations of the Climate Action Team. 0 


D7 


BILL AND GENIE DURLAND 
HONORED BY AFSC AND AT 
INTERMOUNTAIN YEARLY 
MEETING 


ongtime Quakers, Bill and Genie Durland have 

been legends in the non-violent struggle for 

justice and peace both in Colorado and around the 
world for 35 years. 

An attorney and professor, Bill brought four cases 
on war tax resistance to the US Supreme Court in the 
1980s. He has also served as an expert witness on 
constitutional and international law in a number of 
civil disobedience trials of peace activists. Together, 
the Durlands founded and operated the National 
Center on Law and Pacifism from 1977 to 1989. 
During that time, they wrote several manuals and a 
bi-monthly journal on war tax resistance and civil 
disobedience. 

In 1985, the Durlands lived in the Palestinian 

Occupied Territories for six months. They returned to 
Palestine in 2001, 2002, and 2004 as members of 
Christian Peacemaker Team delegations and traveled 
with CPT to Iraq over the Christmas and New 
Years’ holidays, 2002-2003, as the war loomed. Bill 
has written a book, Immoral Wars, Illegal Laws about 
the legal and theological roots of the Palestinian- 
Israeli conflict. Recently Bill defended Amy Bartell 
in Colorado Springs, the wife of a US Army 
Conscientious Objector. Well known to peace 
activists and CPTers in Colorado, one CPTer 
reported that he keeps Bill’s Conscience and the Law: 
A Handbook on Civil Disobedience for the 
Conscientiously Obedient handy at all times. Bill is 
currently the clerk of the Colorado Springs Friends 
Meeting and has served on AFSC’s Central 
Regional Executive Committee. 

Genie has recently published “Zo Live in the 
Peace: A Report from Jerusalem” and Bill has been 
writing on Christian Zionism as it relates to the 
Palestine-Israeli conflict. In an article in the Denver 
Post about their 2002 trip to Iraq, Genie said, “We're 
pacifists by nature, dedicated to violence reduction 
at a very basic, person-to-person level.” I love my 
country, and it breaks my heart that we are taking 
this kind of arrogant police country to the whole 
world’ attitude, and I think we just need to stand up 
and witness against that.” She quoted their old 
friend, Daniel Berrigan, “I can't not do it,” going on 
to say, “And there’s something about that double 


18 


Left to right: Tom Kowall, Bill and Gente at IMYM 


negative that really drives home the point when you feel strongly 
about something.” 

If you Google Bill and Genie Durland, you will come up with 
thousands of entries. It makes fascinating reading, but, more 
importantly, the Goog/e trail documents two intertwined lifetimes 
of solid justice and peace activism. We can count on Bill and Genie 
to be in the forefront of the struggle, and we know that they “can’t 
not do it.” Thank you for your witness. 0 


Be wittiam 
MW PENN 
lg HOUSE 


* 


1966 * 


YOUF House On Capitol Hill 
tor 40 Years 


Hospitality 
Seminars 


Workcamps 
Workshops 
Advocacy 

William Penn House = 515 East Capitol Street 5.£. 


Washington, DC 20003 = 202.543.5560 
info@williampennhouse.org = www.willlampennhouse.org 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


round our house, some of the 
biggest pinyon and juniper trees 
I’ve ever seen offer us a little shelter from 
the wind and weather that often blows 


in hard from the southwest. Nearby, a 
little to our south, a line of aspens that 


follows Crestone Creek down the 
-mountain adds to our sense of enclosure 


-and harbors warblers and western 


' tanagers during the warmer months, as 
well as a colony of turkey vultures. 
In the mornings, the vultures leave 


their nearby roost, drifting down along 
' the line of aspens then cottonwoods that 


' follow the mountain drainages out onto 
the valley floor, scanning county roads 
with eye and nose for the latest roadkill. 
In the evenings, we watch them come 
home to our perch on the flanks of the 


by Peter Anderson 
Colorado 


Sangres, circling by overhead and 
spiraling down to their roost in the 
aspens along Crestone Creek, about a 
quarter of a mile to our south. The 
arroyo they often seem to follow to and 
from their roost runs by our house. In 
their honor, we call it Vulture Gulch. 

One morning, I entice Rosalea into 
the pack with the prospect of a visit to 
the vulture roost down the road. It is 
early enough in the morning that few 
of them have left. As we follow the trail 
along the creek into a little clearing, we 
see them overhead, at least twenty 
vultures, several of them facing toward 
the sun, their wings outspread and 
gathering sunlight. 

“Dont disturb them, Papa,” Rosalea 
says, after a minute or two looking up 
at them in that clearing. We keep 
walking. Down the trail, several vultures 
fly overhead. “Where do you think 
they’re going?” I ask Rosalea. 


The Vulture Church... 


“They're going to school church,” 
she says. 

“Where’s that?” 

“It’s way out there,” she says, 
pointing out over the valley. “And it’s 
where your dreams go when you close 


your eyes.” 0 


Above: Roslea and her father Peter Ander- 
son. Thts essay originally appeared in the 
book First Church of the Higher Eleva- 
tions (ghostdancepress.org). Used with per- 


mission of author. 


Intermountain Yearly Meeting accepts a draft of its first Faith and Practice! 


Quakers do not have a creed, but each Yearly Meeting has a book of guidelines and 
theological statements called Faith and Practice. After being in existence 31 years, 
Intermountain Yearly Meeting accepted a completed draft of its first Faith and Practice, 
which has been 13 years in the making (for an online version, see http:// 
home.earthlink.net/~imym-faith-and-practice/). Each monthly meeting received between 
ten and fifteen copies, of which one was unbound, allowing for additional copies to be 
produced as needed. From June 2006 to June 2007, meetings, individuals, and worship 
groups are encouraged to read and use this book of Faith and Practice, study it, and 
determine how it speaks to them. With the exception of errors in fact, formatting, 
spelling, and so on, the Faith and Practice Committee asks that this period be one of 
“silent” reflective seasoning, allowing adequate time before sending responses to the 
committee. During this time, the work of the committee will be to encourage active 
seasoning. Meetings without committee members are encouraged to appoint someone to 
lead this activity. 

From June 2007 to January 2008, responses, suggestions, and concerns from the 
Yearly Meeting community will be gathered, considered, and incorporated into the draft 
by the Faith and Practice Committee. Depending upon the extent of revision needed, we 


hope to have a published book available by Yearly Meeting 2008. 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


19 


MEMORIAL MINUTES 


RONALD LESTER Mock 


Ronald Lester Mock was born in 
Oakland (CA) on May 29, 1927, the only 
son of Francis “Frank” Bloodgood Mock 
and Jean “Major” Lillian Desoto. His 
father was the only son of a Jewish family 
living in the Los Angeles area; his mother’s 
heritage is shrouded in mystery. 

Ron grew up during the Depression, 
and his family moved several times around 
northern California as his mother sought 
nursing jobs to support them. He started 
school at Mission Dolores in San Francisco 
and spent several unhappy years boarding 
at St. Vincent’s boys’ school and orphanage 
in San Rafael while his parents separated. 
He attended high school in Los Angeles 
and graduated from Polytechnic in 1944. 
After high school, he worked as a pipe 
fitter in the shipyards. His goal was to be 
a writer; however, as advised by his mentors 
at the shipyard, he later went to college to 
prepare for a white collar job. 


Each of FWCC’s 

four sections, serving 
Africa 

e the Americas 


¢ Asia.and the West Pacific 
* Europe and the Middle East 


carries out the work of connecting 
Friends in its own region. 


FWCC cates for isolated Friends 

and meetings and worship groups =~ 
that are located far from established 
yearly meetings through its International 
Membership Committee, 


20 


Ron enlisted in the Navy during 
World War II and was discharged as a 
Seaman First Class in July, 1946. He 
started college at UCLA in pre-optometry, 
a curriculum that did not inspire him. In 
1948, he married Catherine Ann Dorothy 
on his twenty-first birthday. They traveled 
to France, where Ron studied French at 
Universite de Grenoble and then worked 
for the US Embassy in Paris. After two 
years in France, Ron and Catherine 
relocated to the Bay Area, where he 
completed his BA at UC Berkeley, having 
found psychology, a major for which he 
was highly suited. He graduated Phi Beta 
Kappa and was accepted into Berkeley’s 
doctoral program, finishing his course 
work and internships before his life began 
falling apart. 

His marriage ended after seven years 
and he struggled with depression. During 
this time, his father had remarried, which 
resulted in his only sibling, Susan Moran, 
twenty-eight years Ron’s junior. 

At the beginning of the 1960s, Ron 
worked for California’s Department of 
Mental Hygiene in Sacramento. He 
returned to UC Berkeley in 1962, where 


When you support FWCC Section of 

the Americas you are part of this global 
work: One quarter of our unrestricted 
income goes to support the World Office 
and the Africa Section. 


September 2006 


he met Kathleen Ranlett. They married 
later that year. 

Ron was disturbed about the war in 
Vietnam, and one of his professors 
suggested Quakers as a group that knew 
about working for peace. As he was living 
just a few blocks from the Berkeley Friends 
Meeting, Ron got acquainted with 
Quakers and became a regular attender. 
He has been a member of Berkeley 
Monthly Meeting since 1970. 

Ron became involved with the Free 
Speech Movement in 1964 and 
participated in the FSM sit-in on 
December 3, 1964. He was one of the 
oldest protesters to get arrested. He was 
proud of his arrest, seeing it as a way of 
honoring his convictions. Following an 
upbeat period for both the campus and 
himself, he slipped again into a deep 
depression. 

After a couple of years of being 
“hung up on his thesis,” he got back on his 
feet and completed both his doctorate in 
clinical psychology and postdoctoral 
training with children. He liked being 
called “Doc Mock”. He was gifted with 
an ability to understand the trials and 


www .fwecamericas.org 


FRIENDS BULLETIN 


\ 


Saas 


tribulations of others. He worked in 
Alameda County child and family clinics 
and described his work to his daughter as 
“being a grumper doc,” that is, someone 
you talked to when you were grumpy. 
Humor was one of his gifts. He wrote 
several screenplays and humorous essays. 
Shortly before his death, he completed a 
piece about life in Salem Lutheran Home, 
his residence for the two years prior to his 
death. 
As a member of Berkeley Meeting, he 
was long an active participant in the vigil 
protesting the University’s involvement in 
weapons research. He served several terms 
on the Committee for Marriage and 
Family Ties. He was moved by the work 
done by physicians in the Heart-to-Heart 
Program and recently supported the 
Adopt-a-Minefield Program. 
Ronald Lester Mock, age 78, died 
August 19, 2005 after being struck by an 
elevator door. His body went through a 
_ series of crises that prevented an operation 

on his broken hip, and he succumbed to 
_ pneumonia and heart failure nine days after 
the accident. 

He leaves behind his sister, Susan 

~ Moran, his wife, Kathleen Ranlett Mock, 
his daughter Denise Francesca Mock and 
son-in-law Sean Vitali, as well as many 

others whose lives he touched. He is 
buried in a plot he picked at Sunset View 
Cemetery, within walking distance from 
his home in Kensington. 

Ronald never lost his spirit and 
unique sense of humor, which a Friend 
described recently as “sardonic whimsy.” 
He wrote his epitaph many years before 
| his death. It reads: “He had bad 
| protoplasm, but he done his best.” O 


} 


Mary ANNIN SEITZ 


Mary Annin Seitz, 89, on December 
13, 2005, in Santa Rosa, CA. Mary was 
| born on August 30, 1916 to Mary 
_ Carpenter Gallagher and Robert Edwards 
' Annin, Jr. Her father graduated from 
_ Princeton College in 1909, managed the 
family farm in Berkshire County, MA, 
' then moved to Boston to become assistant 
| to the Secretary of Agriculture and to 
attend law school at night. He suffered 
_ from depression and committed suicide in 
1921. Mary’s mother moved with her two 
children, Mary and Robert Edwards 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


Annin, III (called Tertius) to East 
Greenwich, RI to be with family, and went 
to work as a teacher. She spent many years 
at Lincoln School, a Friends school in 
Providence, RI, from which Mary Seitz 
graduated in 1934. 

Mary went on to graduate from Smith 
College in Northampton, MA, where she 
began many friendships that continued 
throughout her life. When she graduated 
in 1938, she began by selling books door 
to door, and also worked for the Pinkerton 
Detective Agency. When Richard Seitz 
hired her as an interviewer for a market 
research project in Providence, RI, he 
encouraged her to pursue her career in New 
York. They were married in 1944, and 
raised two children, Robert Edwards Seitz 
(Ted) and Sarah Ann Seitz (Sally). Their 
loving partnership ended which Richard 
died in 1991. 

The end of World War II brought the 
death of Mary’s younger brother, Tertius, 
a lieutenant in the army. Both Mary and 
her mother felt that there must be a way 
to end all war. 

Mary will be remembered as an 
enthusiastic volunteer in many arenas, 
including a co-op preschool, the local 
PTA, Girl Scouts, the civil rights and anti- 
war movements, and as an advocate for the 
homeless and low cost housing. During 
the 1960s and 70s, she led a group of boys 
from Harlem on recreational and cultural 
activities, and was arrested for standing in 
front of the White House to protest the 
Vietnam War. In her later years, Mary 
bought her clothing from thrift stores to 
make donations to many non-profit 
organizations. 

An avid reader and amateur musician, 
Mary played piano and flute, encouraging 
her family and friends to gather around her 
piano for singing. An annual “Messiah” 
sing-along was held at her home for years 
until the cast of musicians grew so large 
that it had to move to the Friends meeting 
house. A Quaker for 50 years, Mary 
attended meeting at Scarsdale, NY, 
Wilton, CT, and South Berkshire, MA 
until she moved to Friends House in 1993 
and joined Redwood Forest Meeting 
(Santa Rosa CA). 

Mary leaves behind son and daughter- 
in-law Ted and Ann Seitz of Hayward, 
CA, and daughter and son-in-law, Sally 
Seitz and Paul Freitas of Santa Rosa, CA. 


She will be missed by grandchildren Paige 
Seitz-Laurence, Alexander Seitz, Kathryn 
Freitas, Hannah Freitas, and Lia Freitas, 
as well as by family members on the East 


Coast. 0 


LORRAINE FRANCES PRUETT “PRU” 
PEMBERTON 


Pru Pemberton left this life at age 84, 
having lived her values concerning her 
spiritual life, her love of family and friends, 
and her beliefs regarding social-justice 
needs. She had been ill for a little over a 
month with pneumonia. Unable to regain 
her strength, she died quietly at home, 
surrounded by her family, expressing both 
her joy in the life she had lived, and her 
feeling of peace about her impending 
death. 

Pru was born in Rochester, MN, and 
attended the Methodist church there. 
When she was at Oberlin College, she 
attended her first unprogrammed Friends’ 
meeting. She related that when it was over, 
she and her friend burst out of the 
Meeting, ready to explode: “Neither of us 
had ever been silent for an hour before!” 

Upon graduating from Oberlin in 
1944, she earned masters degrees in 
Political and Social Science from the New 
School of Social Research in 1975, and in 
Transpersonal Counseling from John F. 
Kennedy University in 1984. 

Asa young mother in Minnesota, Pru 
volunteered with the American Friends 
Service foreign exchange student program, 
offering her home to high school-age 
students from around the world. In the 
1960s she became one of the first 
employees of the New York Urban 
Coalition. 

A lifelong activist and community 
organizer, in her later years Pru played 
leadership roles in such diverse 
organizations as the Larkin Street (San 
Francisco) Youth Center, the Plymouth 
Church of Oakland, CA the Older 
Women’s League, Earth Elders, The 
Russian River Celebration, and Apple 
Seed Friends Meeting of Sebastopol, CA. 

Pru loved to learn and to travel, and 
in 1997 fulfilled a life-long dream when 
she visited China and the Silk Road with 
Oberlin College friends. Pru freely shared 
her sense of humor, her joy of learning and 
her large store of knowledge with 


an 


community groups to which she belonged, 
as well as during book discussions, with 
her friends and family, and with Apple 
Seed Friends’ Meeting. 

She wrote an essay: “Thoughts on 
Turning Eighty” where she mused: “I have 
never been rich but neither have I ever 
been without food, shelter, or protection 
from the cold...not having too much 
requires evaluation and the setting of 
priorities—a good for 
determining one’s values. I feel frustrated 
when I consider how hard and long I have 
worked to make the world a better place 
in which to live. From now on I am going 


exercise 


to focus my efforts on one or a few people 
at a time. I’m going to leave the larger 
battles for the younger 
generation... Things that seemed like 
hardships or major blows, in retrospect, 
have made me stronger and freed me to 
grow in my own way...Looking back, I 
feel I have had a good life.” 

Pru was a soft and gentle person, and 
very wise. We miss her. 0 


“Minutes,” continued from page 14 


Furthermore, the Yearly Meeting 
allocates for the coming year an allowance 
of $1,000 so that the Group can meet 
those program expenses (including 
communication, printed materials, and 
travel) that cannot be met by the 
participating meetings and worship 
groups. 

Present membership of the Spiritual 
Formation Group: 

Andy Bardwell (Mountain View, CA), 
Kitty Ufford-Chase (Pima, AZ), Wyn 
Lewts (Santa Fe, NM), Bruce Thron-Weber 
(Mountain View, CA), Charlene Weir (Salt 
Lake, UT). 


MINUTE OF APPRECIATION 


Ministry and Council wishes to 
express deep gratitude to Claire Leonard 
for her many years of service in the 
development of a Faith and Practice for this 
Yearly Meeting. Involved from the earliest 
beginnings of this Committee, Claire 
accepted the responsibility of being our 
clerk and has served in that capacity for 
the past nine years. During these years, she 
has shepherded us through the processes 
of discernment, decision-making, and 
writing.... Whenever challenges of varying 


ee 


magnitude have presented themselves, 
Claire has consistently led us through these 
periods with grace, patience and a strength 
born of wisdom. 


Other Minutes Considered 


Other minutes considered, but not 
approved during this season: 

¢ Whether or not to affliliate with 
Friends General Conference. 

¢ Whether or not to affliate with 
Quaker Earth Care Witness. 

These concerns will be held over for 
seasoning and future consideration. 


CALENDAR ITEMS 


Sep 22-24: NURTURING VOCAL MINIsTRY. 
Deepening meetings for worship through 
spoken and silent ministry. Gordon Bishop and 
Rachel Findley. Quaker Center, Ben Lomond, 
CA. 


Oct 6-8: Willamette Quarterly at Mt. Hood 
Kiwanis Camp, 53 miles from Portland. The 
theme: “Quakerism and the Mystical Roots of 
Faith.” 


Sep 29-OcT 1:THE ALTERNATIVES TO 
VIOLENCE ProGRAM. The Basic Training. 
PYM AVP Committee. Quaker Center, Ben 
Lomond, CA. 


Oct 20-22: Ways To LovE Your “ENEMIES.” 
Practical ways of seeing God in all and reaching 
out to your “enemies.” John Helding. Quaker 
Center, Ben Lomond, CA. 


Nov 3-5: A SouL’s TESTAMENT, WRITING A 
PERSONAL SPIRITUAL MEMOIR. Eve Forrest. 
Quaker Center, Ben Lomond, CA. 


Nov 17 - 19: Goopngss. Exploring that sense 
of goodness at our core, learning energy work, 
and laughing. John Calvi. Quaker Center, Ben 
Lomond, CA. 


home planet. 


510-665-3170. 


September 2006 


“HOLDING EARTH IN THE LIGHT” RETREAT SEP 29-Ocrt 1, 2006 


Strawberry Creek Meeting (Berkeley, CA), and Pacific Yearly Meeting and Unity 
with Nature Committee, are co-sponsoring a retreat, at Sierra Friends Center, in Nevada 
City, CA, for Quakers who want to stoke the fires of Earthcare Witness in our home meetings. 
Join us to share inspiration, information, dreams and fun with folks who want to bring the 
light of love and the clarity of conviction to our actions on behalf of Earth and all its creatures. 
We'll come together to share what we are doing now and to consider how we can be more 
effective in translating our deep concerns for Earth into spirit-filled action within our Quaker 
communities and beyond. Keith Helmuth, who is known in Quaker circles through his 
many articles and essays in Quaker publications, will bring to the gathering a call for Quakers 
to expand the scope of our testimonies and witness beyond our traditional concern for human 
betterment to include concern for the well-being of the whole community of life on our 


For more information about the retreat and how to register please visit — 
www.dimeagallon.org or www.woolman.org or contact: James Hosley bluejkh@softcom.net 


CLASSIFIEDS 


Publications 


QUAKER LIFE—INFORMING AND EQUIP- 
PING FRIENDS AROUND THE WORLD. Free 
sample available upon request. Join our family of 
Friends for one year (10 issues) at $24. For informa- 
tion contact: 

Quaker Life 

101 Quaker Hill Drive 

Richmond, IN 47374 

Phone: 765-962-7573 

E-mail: QuakerLife@fum.org 

Website: www.fum.org 


PENDLE HILL PAMPH- 
LETS are timely essays on 
many facets of Quaker life, 
thought and spirituality, 
readable at one sitting. 
Subscribe to receive six 
pamphlets/year for $20 
(US). Also available: every pamphlet 
published previously by Pendle Hill, 
including recent pamphlets by Marge 
Abbott, Robert Griswold and Steve 
Smith. 800-742-3150 exem2m@oe 
bookstore@pendlehill.org. 


FRIENDS JOURNAL is 
more than a magazine — it’s 
a ministry of the written 
word. Friends worldwide 
find community in each issue 
full of award-winning art- 
icles, opinions, poetry, news, and art. Call 
us toll-free at 800-471-6863 and mention 
offer code FB2007 to receive 12 monthly 
issues for $35, saving 42% off the cover 
price! FRIENDS JOURNAL, 1216 Arch 
St., 2A, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Visit us 


on the web at www.friendsjournal.org. 


FRIENDS BULLETIN 


VINTAGE Books, Quaker Books. Rare and 
out-of-print journals, history, religion. Contact 
us for specific wants. 181 Hayden Rowe St, 
Hopkinton, MA 01748. Phone: 508-435-3499. 
Email: vintage@gis.net. 


Schools, Retreat Centers, Camps, 
and Retirement Homes 


BEN LOMOND QUAKER CENTER: Personal re- 
treats, family reunions, weddings, retreats, and our 
own schedule of Quaker Programs. Among the 
redwoods, near Santa Cruz, CA. 831-336-8333. 
http://www.quakercenter.org. 


FRIENDS HOUSE IS A MULTI-LEVEL RETIRE- 
MENT COMMUNITY offering independent liv- 
ing apartments and houses, and an assisted care 
living facility. Located in Santa Rosa, Friends 
House is easily accessible to San Francisco, the 
Pacific Coast, redwood forests, and the vine- 
yards of Sonoma and Napa counties. Friends 
House is owned and operated by Friends Asso- 
ciation of Services for the Elderly (FASE), a 
California not-for-profit corporation. The fa- 
cility and Board of Directors are strongly influ- 
enced by Quaker traditions. The welfare and 
growth of persons within an environment which 
stresses independence is highly valued. Tour 
Friends House at our website at 
www. friendshouse.org. Friends House, 684 
Benicia Drive, Santa Rosa, CA 95409. 707- 
538-0152. 

seek 
‘THE WoOLMAN SEMESTER offers Friends 
education to students in grades 11-13 focused 
on the Testimonies of peace, justice and 
stewardship. Students earn a full semester of 
high school credit and log 120 hours of 
‘community service. Through the challenge of a 
| rigorous curriculum, simple living in community 
-and service work in Mexico, students gain an 
‘intrinsic direction for their futures. Academic 
: skills, nonviolent activism and self-awareness are 
‘developed to guide them with integrity. 
i Financial Aid and Quaker Scholarships support 
all qualified teens. Visit www.woolman.org or 
‘contact 530-273-3183. 
WILLIAM PENN House & WASHINGTON 
| QUAKER WorRKCAMPS. Washington, DC. 
‘Quaker Center on Capitol Hill offer hospitality, 
‘Meeting space and worship. Workcamp 
“opportunities for youth, peace studies seminars for 
educators, and seminars for all ages. Leadership 
‘training for Quaker young adults through our 
‘internship program. All are welcome. 
www.WmPennHouse.org, 
-info@WmPennHouse.org. 202-543-5560. 
515 East Capitol St SE, Washington, DC 
20003. 


oR 


September 2006 FRIENDS BULLETIN 


POSITIONS VACANT: WILLIAM PENN 
House & WASHINGTON QUAKER WORK- 
CAMPS Washington, DC. Hospitality intern, 
full time. Spring 2006. Register and greet 
guests, work with workcamps, peace studies 
and international program seminars. Stipend, 
room and board and health insurance. 
wwweWaPienn Houselorg, 
info@WmPennHouse.org. 202-543-5560. 
515 East Capitol St SE, Washington, DC 
20003. 

ACCOMODATIONS: QUAKER HILL CONFER- 
ENCE CENTER, Richmond, IN, offers over- 
night accommodations for Friends traveling in 
this area. For info and reservations, contact 
QHCC at 765-962-5741, quakerhill@parallax.ws 
or visit our website at www.ghcc.org. 
WELLSPRINGS FRIENDS SCHOOL: alternative, 
accredited high school grades 9-12. Rooted in 
the Quaker spirit of simplicity, community, 
nonviolence, honoring the Light in every per- 
son. Open enrollment. Climate of affirmation. 
3590 W 18th Avenue, Eugene, OR 97402. 541- 
686-1223. FAX: 541-687-1493. Dennis 
Hoerner, Head. 


Services 


JOIN THE FOLKS AT FRIENDLY Horse ACRES 
FOR A DAY AT A HORSE FARM. All ages wel- 
come. Camps are set up to encourage confi- 
dence in people who are fearful of horses, as 
well as more experienced horse lovers. Learn 
to see the world from the horse’s point of view. 
Visit www.friendlyhorseacres.com. Phone: 
360-825-3628. Email: friendlaverne 
@friendlyhorseacres.com 


Tours and Opportunities 


CONSIDER A Costa Rica Stupy Tour. Visit 
the Quaker community of Monteverde. See the 
cloud forest and two oceans. Write Sarah 
Stuckey, Apdo 46-5655, Monteverde, Costa 
Rica. Phone/FAX: 011-506-645-5436 or 
937-728-9887 or Email: crstudy@racsa.co.cr. 


Website: www.crstudytours.com. 
2K 


CONSIDER THE ARIZONA FRIENDS COMMU- 
NITY FOR YOUR NEXT, OR YOUR SECOND, 
HOME. 360 degree mountain views, 4,000 ft 
elevation, often near-perfect weather, among 
good friends. Write Roy Joe and Ruth Stuckey, 
6567 N San Luis Obispo Drive, Douglas, AZ 
85607. Website: arizonafriends.com. 


RoR AC 


QUAKER WRITERS, EDITORS, AND 
PUBLISHERS ARE INVITED TO JOIN QUIP 
(QUAKERS UNITING IN PUBLISHING). An 
international “self help” organization of 


theologically diverse Friends concerned with the 
ministry of the written word. Contact Graham 
Garner at grahamG@fgcquaker.org. Website: 


www.quaker.org/quip. 


FRIENDS PLANNING TO MOVE CAN REQUEST AS- 
SISTANCE FROM DaviD BROWN, A QUAKER 
REALTOR. David will refer you to a real estate pro- 
fessional to assist you with buying and/or selling a 


RAK 


QUAKER COMMERCIAL REALTOR specializing 
in income property sales and 1031 replacements 


nationally. Call Allen Stockbridge, JD, CCIM 
at 877-658-3666. 


Concerned Singles 


links compatible, socially conscious singles 
who care about peace, social justice, diversity, gender 
equity, and the health of the planet. 
Nationwide/ Canada. 
All ages. Since 1984. 
FREE SAMPLE: Box 444-FB, 
Lenox Dale, MA 01242 


413-243-4350 or www.concernedsingles.com 


JOIN THE FELLOWSHIP OF QUAKERS IN THE 
ARTS ($25/year), and share your work with 
Friends in our exciting quarterly, Types & 
Shadows. Seeking short fiction & non-fiction, 
poetry, drawings, B&W photos, and news of 
Quaker art. Help create a new chapter in Quaker 
History! More info: FQA, 1515 Cherry St, 
Philadelphia, PA 19102. Email submissions OK. 
fqa@quaker.org www.quaker.org/fga. 


AFSC/INTERMOUNTAIN YM 
JOINT SERVICE PROJECT: 
QUAKER WORK CAMPS FOR TEENS 

AND ADULTS. Spring and fall in Mexico, 

summer with Oglala Lakota. Contact 

Mike Gray. Email: MGray@afsc.org or 

520-907-6321. Website: afsc.org. 


CorRRECTION: In the July-August of Friends 
Bulletin, the last phrase in Forrest Curo’s review 
of Lloyd Lee Wilson’s book Wrestling with Our 
Faith Tradition was inadvertently omitted. It 
should read: “[ Wilson's] language occasionally 
gets dangerously extravagant, but the faith and 
thought beneath it are solid. I hope you too will have 


” 
. 


the same pleasure |as I did in reading this book] 


2006 ADVERTISING RATES: $.47per word for 
CLASSIFED ADS. Minimum charge, $9. Box ads: 
10% extra. Ads should be prepaid, if possible. 
DEADLINE: six weeks prior to publication. DISPLAY 
ADS: $16 per column inch. % page ad (4 x 44): 
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oe 


rograms for YOU 
at Pendle Hi 


| October 13-15 

| Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP): 
Advanced Workshop 

with Val Liveoak & Katie Murphy 


October 23-27 

Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership 
in Organizations 
with Margaret Benefiel 


October 27-29 

Class Matters—Iin 
Community and Coalition 
with George Lakey & Nancy Diaz 


November 6-10 December 8-10 
Yoga You Can Exploring Dreams 
Take Home With You with Jeremy Taylor 
with Bob Butera 


PENDLE HILu Contact us to find out more 


A QUAKER CENTER FOR STUDY AND CONTEMPLATION 
338 Plush Mill Road - Wallingford, PA 19086 610.566.4507 ext. 3 or 800.742.3150 ext. 3 


www.pendlehill.org registrar@pendlehill.org